Jim Morrison once said, “whoever controls the media, controls the mind”. Today the media that moves our minds and markets is increasingly digital, and contagious. Viral memes, in particular, are emerging as a new source of both wealth and power. The rapid rise of both NFTs (Non-Fungible Tokens), and their values, have cemented the financial … Continue reading Control the Narrative, Control the World
Demographic dividend, or demographic disaster? As India is about to overtake China as the world's most populous country, it's worth considering if holding that title is still the win it once was. Not so long ago, more people meant more growth, more productivity, more progress. Hence the term: demographic dividend. If your working age population … Continue reading Assets to Liabilities
Everywhere we look, people are disappearing. Disappearing into their bedrooms, into their phones, into the metaverse and out of their real lives. As life becomes more virtualised and more artificial, as our digital lives supersede our physical existence, as our stores of value - of both worldly financial wealth and social credit - become increasingly … Continue reading Connecting the Dissapeared
What I read in 2022, the comprehensive list. How to read this list: * = Recommend** = Really recommendNC = No comment (or, really, do not bother)RR = Re-readF = FictionNF = Non-fictionP = Plays This year's list is (far) shorter than usual. I had a lot going on that's none of your business. I don't post … Continue reading 2022 – Another Year in Books
Africa, the continent with the youngest population in the world, is very literally the future. More specially, South Africa, with its progressive constitution that lead the world in terms of dealing with questions around gender and race relations; and it’s early warnings around the limits of the social contract and the (now global) energy crunch, … Continue reading Africa is (literally) the future
“As soon as the land of any country has all become private property, the landlords, like all other men, love to reap where they never sowed, and demand a rent even for its natural produce.”~ Adam Smith There are countless keynote speakers, business consultants and best selling books that will tell you how technology is … Continue reading Digital Landlords
Over the last few years, Minecraft users have been painstakingly building a 1:1 replica of Earth to preserve a record of our planet and our current civilisation in event of its destruction. (Goodness knows there are enough options - from climate change and pandemics to nuclear and bio warfare - for total world-ending destruction available … Continue reading Guardians of the Past
It's about time you reclaimed the future. Especially the far future, which we all seem to have forgotten about. The possibility of the far future has got lost amongst the perma-crisis that clouds geopolitics literally (or less so, depending on where in the world you live...). But here's the thing : there are no rules … Continue reading the 1000 Year Project
A couple of quotes from the ever-quotable Erick Hoffer's The Ordeal of Change (which is really more of a list of life advice than a "book" per say: “One cannot escape the impression that the intellectual’s most fundamental incompatibility is with the masses. He has managed to thrive in social orders dominated by kings, nobles, … Continue reading The Ordeal of Change
I've been thinking lately about codes. Not cryptography, but rather the codes by which we govern our lives. At the societal level, the two critical poles come down to trust or control (or liberty or authority). At the individual level, this becomes a choice to be governed by duty or by authority. Similar to how … Continue reading As above, so below
